


Motherfucker

by imsorryimlate



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Timeline What Timeline, sort of now though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5994721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsorryimlate/pseuds/imsorryimlate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Patrick expected Pete to propose, and the 1 time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motherfucker

Patrick stuck his head into the kitchen, where Pete was making their dinner.

“Hey man, can I borrow your phone? Mine died, and I was talking to my mom.”

Usually, Patrick would charge his phone and then call his mom, like a reasonable person who was at home with their charger in a grabbable distance, but Patrick’s phone had a few years on its neck and took almost ten minutes to start up again, and it had died right in the middle of a conversation.

“Sure, it’s in my pocket,” Pete replied and continued cooking. “You can get it yourself,” he added after a beat, flashing Patrick a flirty smile.

Patrick rolled his eyes, but dutifully went over to Pete and dug his phone out of his pocket, giving his ass a squeeze in the process. Pete reached for him, but he batted his hands away.

“Pete, I have to call my mom,” he said, but he was unable to stop the smile spreading over his face.

“Mm, but afterwards,” Pete told him, eyes full of promise.

Patrick shook his head to himself as he left the kitchen. They’d been together for almost three years, lived together for two, but most days they still ended up flirting and groping. Though he supposed it wasn’t very surprising, considering it took them over a decade to get their shit together and do this.

He called his mom, talked to her for about twenty minutes, and then said goodbye and promised to say hi to Pete. Just as he removed the phone from his ear, it buzzed in his hand. It was a text from Joe that said _“sure, no problem”_.

Now, Patrick didn’t have a habit of checking Pete’s text messages, but he didn’t have a habit of borrowing Pete’s phone either, so he couldn’t help but click on the message. It’s what he did when he got messages, so it was an automatic move, really.

It brought him to Pete and Joe’s conversation, and more importantly, to the question Pete had asked in the previous message.

_“you have to come with me and pick out a ring”_

The feeling Patrick then experienced could be compared to getting doused with cold water. He froze and stared, because. Well. Pete was asking Joe to pick out rings with him. Pete was going to propose. To Patrick. He was going to ask Patrick to marry him.

It wasn’t that surprising, not really. If Pete had gone down on his knee at dinner and asked him to marry him, he wouldn’t have been surprised. But somehow, seeing Pete planning for it… That was different.

Okay, this was fine. He wanted to marry Pete. He’d thought about it before. He just had to let it happen.

Patrick smiled and exited Pete and Joe’s conversation, a warm feeling settling into his chest.

“Hey, is dinner ready yet?” He asked as he reentered the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

**1.**

Two weeks after Patrick had found Pete’s text, Pete told him he’d booked a table at a fancy restaurant downtown for date night, and Patrick knew it was time.

He dressed nicely, wanting to look his best, but not wanting to make it obvious he knew what was up.

“You look so good tonight,” Pete told him as they walked from the car to the restaurant, his hand on the small of Patrick’s back. The butterflies in Patrick’s stomach fluttered excitedly. After this evening, they’d be engaged.

It was the epitome of a romantic evening. The food was good, they sat at a secluded table with lit candles, talking and joking, and Pete held his hand and kissed his knuckles every now and again. Patrick scanned his delicate glass of white wine, looking for a ring, but saw none. He supposed Pete would go the down-on-his-knee route. Pete had a traditional stroke when it came to these things after all.

But as the evening stretched on and dessert arrived and no question was asked, Patrick became fidgety and unable to relax. All he could do was wait for a moment that didn’t seem to arrive.

“Are you okay, baby?” Pete asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Patrick assured him and nodded for extra emphasis. Pete didn’t look convinced.

“I’ll get the check and then we can get out of here, okay?”

When they got home, Pete gave him a massage and kissed him and cuddled him, and although it was more than nice, it was not how Patrick had expected the evening to go.

As they lay in bed that night, curled together, Patrick couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

 

* * *

 

**2.**

Days later, Pete popped into their music room, where Patrick was busy replacing the strings on one of his guitars.

“Hey, you wanna come with me and walk the dog?” He asked.

Patrick considered it for a moment, but then decided that a short walk before bed would be nice.

“Alright,” he agreed, and followed Pete to the hallway.

They donned their shoes and coats and leashed their dog before leaving the house. The air was slightly chilly, about as chilly as it ever got in L.A. Otherwise it was a beautiful night, with the stars peeking out between the heavy clouds that filled up the majority of the sky. It would rain later.

“Let’s go over there,” Pete said, hooked his arm in Patrick’s, and started walking towards a park lit up by big bowl lampposts.

Oh. Patrick suddenly understood what was going on. They walked the dog together occasionally, but a romantic walk in the park under a starry sky? It was tonight then, tonight Pete would ask.

Patrick pressed himself closer to Pete, and Pete looked at him and smiled.

They slowed down to a stop under a glowing lamppost, letting the dog do its business.

“Here.” Pete handed Patrick the leash while he picked up the poop and then disposed of the small, black bag in the trashcan by the lamppost. Patrick had to admit that picking up dog poop didn’t exactly add to the romance factor, but Pete did get bonus points for being original. This was better than a proposal over dinner anyway.

“What are you smiling about?” Pete asked as he retrieved the leash from Patrick’s hand.

“You,” Patrick answered earnestly.

“Aww, Patty,” Pete cooed before cupping Patrick’s face and kissing him.

When they parted, Patrick expected Pete to ask him. _Any minute now,_ he thought. Pete just kissed him again before continuing down the path through the park.

Patrick chastised himself for assuming that a simple walk in the park would end with a proposal, and told himself that it was his own damn fault if he felt disappointment bloom in him.

 

* * *

 

**3.**

Valentine’s Day had never been something either of them celebrated, together or before that with respective partners. That first year they had been together Patrick had bought Pete flowers, but that’s about as much as it had ever become.

Naturally, Patrick didn’t expect this Valentine’s Day to be anything special either. He dearly hoped that Pete wouldn’t propose to him, because that would be cliché, and not in the good way.

When Patrick came home from the gym to pink rose petals on the floor, he rolled his eyes. Okay, so he just had to surrender to the idea that their engagement day would be Valentine’s Day. It’s not like it mattered much anyway.

He left his gym bag by the door and followed the trail of rose petals to the bedroom.

Upon entering, he found Pete lying on his side on the bed, dressed in an animal print robe and with a rose between his teeth.

Patrick couldn’t help himself; he burst into laughter. Pete responded with a broad grin.

“Pete… why?” Patrick asked when he stopped laughing.

“I thought I’d surprise you for Valentine’s Day,” Pete mumbled around the rose stem, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I’m surprised alright,” Patrick said and took off his shirt before joining Pete on the bed.

Pete took the rose from his mouth and handed it over to Patrick before he leaned over the side of the bed and returned with a bowl of strawberries.

“This is ridiculous,” Patrick pointed out.

“I know,” Pete said and held out a strawberry to Patrick.

Patrick humoured him and took a bite out of the sweet strawberry. He wondered how many fake-romantic rituals they would have to go through before Pete proposed. There was no way he’d go through all the trouble of making this a romantic/ridiculous/memorable evening if there was no purpose to it, right?

Patrick was unsurprised that he was wrong. Apparently Pete only wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day with strawberries and rose petals and champagne and love-making, without any proposals.

Patrick was secretly relieved.

 

* * *

 

**4.**

Touring started up again, in Europe this time. Patrick pushed all thoughts of proposals to the back of his mind, although he expected Joe to maybe reveal that he knew something was up, but he didn’t.

It’s not a big deal, Patrick told himself. Pete would wait until they were home again, and then he’d ask.

When they played their seventh show though, Pete went off-script with the in-between-songs-talk.

“Hey Patrick, I need to ask you something,” he said, and Patrick almost choked on the water he was drinking.

Oh God. Pete was going to propose to him during a show.

He had expected Pete to do it more privately. Sure, their fans supported their relationship. Loved it, even. Still, they tried to keep Fall Out Boy and their lovelife separated.

On the other hand, if they got engaged during a show, there would be less questions to answer in the upcoming press about it.

Patrick swallowed his mouthful of water and smiled at Pete.

“What do you want to know?” Patrick asked into the mic.

The nervous flutter was back in his chest. He’d get engaged in front of the world. There would be cameras capturing this moment.

“How many hours of sleep did you get a night while working on this album?”

Patrick blinked.

“What?”

“You worked on it day and night,” Pete said, then he turned to the audience. “This album was his baby. I practically had to tie him to the bed to get him to sleep.”

The audience cheered at that, and Pete winked at him with a shit-eating grin that Patrick had difficulty responding to.

 

* * *

 

**5.**

After that Patrick decided not to expect anything from Pete ever again.

It almost worked, until they’re in Paris and Pete wanted them to go to the Eiffel Tower, as if they hadn’t been there before.

“I’ll ask Andy and Joe if they want to-”

“No,” Pete interrupted him. “I kinda thought it would be just us.”

After all this time, Patrick was still weak for Pete’s shy smile. Which he knew wasn’t really shy, it was just constructed to look that way, because Pete knew what effect it had on people.

The elevator up to the top was crowded, as always. No one recognised them though, and that was nice.

It was cold when they exited the elevator, since they were so high up. And besides, it was just the beginning of April, so it’s not like the weather was warm either.

Patrick shivered, but didn’t regret coming here. The view was stunning, and he knew Pete loved it as much as he did. The first time they had been here, it had been difficult to leave, and Pete had waxed on about how he’d propose to his future partner here.

Oh. Patrick should’ve gotten that one right away, but he guessed he’d been distracted by his determination to not expect anything.

It was cliché, but a nice kind of cliché. Not propose-on-Valentine’s-Day cliché.

Pete held his hand and talked about the view, about the city, and about how excited he was about that night’s show.

After almost half an hour, Pete declared that it was cold and they should leave.

Patrick refused to be disappointed (it didn’t work).

 

* * *

 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they feel so incredibly stupid that they wonder how they ever managed to get this far. For Patrick, that moment came a week after they had been in Paris and Andy told him that they would have a surprise birthday party for one of their handlers that night.

“Shit,” he said, and Andy raised his eyebrows. “I forgot. I don’t have a present.”

“Pete said you did,” Andy said, and now it was Patrick’s time to raise his eyebrows.

“Excuse me.”

Patrick left Andy and went to find Pete. He found him in their hotel room together with Joe. The two of them sat on the couch, looking in a tattoo magazine together and discussing what they considered getting next.

“Hey guys,” Patrick greeted.

“Hi,” they chorused.

Patrick sat down beside them.

“Pete?”

“Mm?”

“Andy said you had gotten Lauren a birthday present from us.”

“I did.” Pete looked up from the magazine and trained his eyes on Patrick. “I told you.”

“No you didn’t,” Patrick said and searched his memory.

“I did, even if you don’t remember it. I got her a lip ring; she’s been talking about getting pierced for ages,” Pete said.

“I helped him pick it out months ago,” Joe added without taking his eyes off the magazine.

And that was the moment Patrick felt so incredibly stupid that he wondered how he ever managed to get this far.

The ring Joe had helped Pete pick out had been a lip ring for their handler, not an engagement ring for Patrick.

“Don’t worry,” Pete said when he saw Patrick’s frozen expression. “I’ll tell her it’s from the both of us.”

 

* * *

 

Pete was worried about him, he knew. He also know that Pete wanted him to talk to Pete about it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because the reason he was feeling down and embarrassed and sulky was that he’d thought that Pete would propose to him when Pete had no intention of doing so. It wasn’t Patrick’s fault though; who would’ve seen that text and not jumped to conclusions?

The embarrassment was hard to shake though, and Pete’s worried eyes on him made it worse.

Patrick made a decision then; he obviously wanted to marry Pete, so when they came home from the tour, Patrick would ask him to marry him.

That decision made Patrick feel less stupid.

 

* * *

 

 

**+1.**

They made it home from tour two months later, and they’re worn and tired.

Patrick had gotten rid of all embarrassment from the whole proposal misunderstanding, at least for as long as he didn’t think of it too much.

The proposal would take place the coming week, after they’d rested a bit. He considered asking someone to go pick out a ring with him, but honestly, he could do it himself. He knew Pete and what Pete would like.

Patrick was lazing in front of the TV the second day home when Pete approached him.

“Hey, I wrote something. Want to check it out?” He asked.

Patrick looked up at him from his comfortable sprawl over the couch.

“We haven’t even unpacked yet and you’re already working on new stuff?”

Pete shrugged. “I never really stop.”

“Let’s see it then,” Patrick said and held out his hand.

Pete handed him his notebook and Patrick looked down on the page that was open.

_Will you marry me?_ was written in the middle of the page.

Patrick’s heart skipped a beat and he looked over to Pete.

Pete had, in two seconds, kneeled on the floor and held out his hand where a ring rested on his palm. He was smiling, hopeful.

“Motherfucker,” Patrick breathed out.

“What?” Pete asked and giggled nervously.

Patrick threw the notebook on the couch, then he too kneeled on the floor.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” he said and leaned forward to kiss Pete. “Of course I will,” he added, mumbling against Pete’s lips.

 

Of course, Pete never let him forget that he’d called him ‘motherfucker’ when he proposed.

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if this is really bad. I haven't written for these two before, but I just needed to get this out of my system.


End file.
